Luch has carried a number of articles against mass
strikes. It is obvious that we cannot reply to Luch here in the
way it deserves.

We shall limit ourselves to a few purely theoretical comments on the
nature of the arguments of Luch. Those who write for
Luch and who diligently cite examples from Western countries,
repeating the catchword “anarcho-syndicalism” and so on in a thousand
variations, thereby betray their complete incomprehension of the historical
peculiarity of the strikes in Russia in 1912.

Nowhere in Europe have strikes in the twentieth century had, and
nowhere do they have or can they have, such importance as in the Russia of
the period we are passing through. Why?

For the simple reason that while the period of radical democratic
changes has long been absolutely over through out Europe, in Russia it is
just such changes that are on the order of the day—in the historical
sense of the phrase.

Hence the nation-wide character of the economic, and still more of the
non-economic, strikes in Russia. Strikes in Europe, where they herald
entirely different changes, do not possess such a nation-wide
character (from the stand point of democratic changes in the
country). Moreover, the relation between the strikes in Russia and the
position of the agricultural small producers (peasants) is quite unlike
what it is in the Western countries.

Putting all this together, we shall see that the arguments of
Luch leave out of account precisely the national, democratic
significance of the economic and non-economic strikes in the Russia of
1912. The most important and historically
distinctive feature of our strikes is the fact that the proletariat comes
forward as the leader despite the anti-democratic sentiments of
the liberals. And it is just this that the Luch writers do not
understand, and cannot understand from their liquidationist standpoint.

Of course, the point is not at all to appraise the advisability of any
particular strike. It is not at all that the most methodical preparations
are necessary and sometimes even the replacement of a strike by an action
of the same kind. The point is the liquidators’ general
incomprehension of this particular significance of strikes in
general which makes the slogan of “freedom of association” or of an
“open party” unsuitable, out of keeping with the existing situation.

What the liquidators see as a disadvantage is the entire character of
the movement and not particular cases, while the Marxists and all
class-conscious workers see it as an advantage. That is why the workers
have been incensed, and continue to be incensed, by Luch’s
propaganda.